Studies on genetic divergence (D2) for fruit yield and its related traits in pumpkin (Cucurbita moschata Duch. ex. Poir)

An experiment was conducted at Main Experiment Station of Department of Vegetable Science at Acharya Narendra Deva University of Agriculture and Technology, Kumarganj, Ayodhya (U.P). The experimental material consisted of 28 pumpkin genotypes including three standard checks viz., Arka Chandan, Azad Kaddu and Pusa Vikash was conducted in a Randomized Block Design with three replications. Analysis of variance studies indicated significant differences among all the genotypes for all the characters under study. Genetic diversity was worked out using Mahalanobis D2 statistic. Based on D2 analysis, the genotypes were grouped into 7 distinct non-overlapping clusters. Cluster I, II and III had 6 genotypes in each clusters. Cluster IV, V and VI also had 3 genotypes and cluster VII had presented only one genotype. The maximum intra-cluster distance was in cluster V (139.09) and minimum intra-cluster distance was found for cluster VII (0.00). Clustering pattern revealed that geographical diversity was not associated with genetic diversity of genotypes. The maximum inter-cluster distance was observed between clusters III to cluster VII (503.329), which suggested that members of these two clusters are genetically very diverse to each other. The inter cluster values between cluster I to cluster VII (398.733), V to VII (325.792), II to VII (315.975), V to VI (312.753) and I to V (309.983) were also high. The minimum inter-cluster D2 value was recorded in case of cluster III to cluster IV (174.606). The wider genetic diversity were observed in cluster clusters I to VII, V to VII, II to VII, V to VI and I to V which indicated the potentiality of these diverse genotypes collection for providing basic material for future breeding programmes.